The
Orthodox priest Aliaksandr Shramko, who serves in the church of St.
Archangel Michael in the Sukharava neighbourhood in Minsk, reflects
on the reasons to abolish the death penalty.

“As
of today , what is the Christian view on the death penalty?”

“The
complexity of the Christian view on the death penalty is connected to
the fact that the Orthodox Church doesn't have a clear social
concept, there is no clear ban on the death penalty. However, if we
think formally keeping to the content of the Christian doctrine, we
can come to another conclusion. First of all, even in the Old
Testament, which has more stringent laws, including the ones which
are directed at the destruction of human beings, "an eye for an
eye", "a tooth for a tooth" purport to contain the
society
which was in a wild state at the time, so that a man who has killed
could kill no more. "An
eye for an eye" means a limitation and not a command, not a call
that a man had killed the murderer, but
a call not to do worse and not to kill more. In
our timeswe
can
often
hear that it is necesssary to put criminals on a stake – not just
kill them, but kill with cruelty. That's
why it was
a limitation even at that time. Secondly,
even in some
parables of the
Old Testament it
is stated
that revenge is bad. For example, as the Scripture says, "a
vindictive will
get the
vengeance of the Lord". Vengeance is not supported even in the
Old Testament. But the present supporters of the death penalty,
although they say it is a just punishment, psychologically advocate
it
on the grounds of revenge.

“And
what can you say about the New Testament?”

“This
is a new era, the era of charity,
having
quite different moral criteria, aimed at improving the
man.
Sermon on the Mount ends with the words: "Be as
perfect
as your heavenly Father". Although Jesus did not say that it is
necessary to abolish the death penalty, he could not say so because
he had come to preach the New Kingdom, the Kingdom of God as opposed
to this
world. So
he did not give orders to the laws in this earthly realm, he said
that we need to grow and grow to
the Kingdom
of God –
we are given the grace to rise
to the Kingdom
of God . And when we think about the death penalty, we need to think
from the point of view of Christianity – how it will affect
Christ's
sermon.
And in this sense we can see that the death penalty is in conflict
with the Gospel. The whole Gospel,
the entire New Testament is built on compassion, forgiveness. And in
the case of the death penalty forgiveness and mercy don't
work.
Christianity is aimed at improving the man and his free expression of
feelings, not just
on restraining his instincts, but on breeding the feelings of
Christians in him, as Christ lives in the heart – it is so in the
New Testament.

“If
the advocates
of the death penalty say about its necessity, there
is such an argument that in this case people
will be afraid
to commit crimes ...”

“But
this is again at odds with the Gospel. Because the
fear of God is one thing, and the fear of a man leads to the
oppression of the person, which
leads not to the free expression of a person, but to its closure and
conservation. That's why if we look from the Christian
point of view, we won't
see the death penalty in the perspective of the Kingdom
of God. Therefore, we will proceed from the fact that from the
viewpoint
of the New Testament there
is no place for the
death penalty. Lord Jesus Christ, when
the
disciples wanted to punish the
guilty, asked him: “"Lord,
do you want to call fire down from heaven and
destroy everything, as
Elijah did? But he rebuked them, and said : "I have
come
not to destroy men's lives, but to save them". So we have to
think about it, the salvation of human
souls.

Sometimes
supporters of the death penalty draw
the
argument that the most important thing is
to
save the soul, not the body – they say that even if a person is
killed unjustly, the
soul will be saved, for he is an
innocent
casualty.
But the Church is against suicide, against euthanasia, against
anything that interrupts a person's life, because God has given the
man
his
body and
life on earth. Earthly life is just given to man in
the perspective of the eternal
life, so
that he would have an opportunity to come to God during the earthly
life, to evolve. And here we cut this evolution. THey say that a
person can repent for three minutes. Yes... It can take even three
seconds, as in the case of the robber on the cross. But it may as
well take ten years. It is necessary to give the opportunity to
repoent, God
gave people the opportunity to save
their souls.

In
today's society there
are a lot more opportunities to limit the offender. The ancient
societies didn't have such an opportunities, as the penitentiary
system wasn't developed that well. At present people have the
opportunity to live in isolation from the society.
Cruelty, which was
typical of ancient societies, is declining gradually thanks to
Christian education . Human rights and
respect for the dignity of man – this
is is
consistent with the spirit of Christianity. And the respect for the
individual, as a unique microcosm in which we can not interfere,
crush and
destroy it – this is what was brought by Christianity. As
the Apostle Paul says: "Don't
you know that you are
the Temple of God?" It
is explicitly stated that a human being is the Temple of God, and one
cannot simply come and destroy it. Of course, the
man may
have himself
committed the crime and destroyedsuch
a
temple, but it does not mean that he has to be
treated the same way.“During
Stalin's purges millions of people were
killed, dozens
of thousands of priests were shot. Speaking of death, we often forget
about the victims of the shooting . How can
we separate the concepts of "the
death penalty" and " political repression"?

“Millions
of people were exterminated at that time. We
need
to remember these victims, and not just to pay tribute to their
memory, but also to think about the consequences of violence, the
desire to destroy, to kill. Now they say – one
should received a deserved punishment.
During
Stalin's times they thought that everything is done fairly. However,
what is a “deserved punishment”? It is subjective. Someone says
that murder should be punished with death, others also say it should
be done for the state treachery or an idea, or for belonging to a
harmful social strata. This gradually develops such an attitude to
people that they can be killed, destroyed.

“The
executioner, hangman... How is his profession assessed from the
viewpoint of the Christian ethics? There is the commandment “Thou
shalt not kill ... " and the executioner kills
on behalf of the state.”

“I
think that's painful. I have
even
read the memoirs
of some of these people. This is a terrible job. Naturally, a
Christian is unlikely to carry out such work. It is simply impossible
to imagine. Because a person can not be good, have
god in his heart, take the communium and kill at the same time. It is
unthinkable. As far as a person who kills another person even
occasionally (for instance, by knocking down while driving a car)
cannot be a priest. The church doesn't allow it. The demands here are
stricter than to an ordinary Christian. And what if a person does not
just kill, but does it as a regular job? This is a lost person in
general. The existence of such people is
detrimental to the
society.
A judge who passes sentence ... It is also detrimental to them. This
judge is
also
a
killer actually. Although he does
not pull the trigger , but he orders
to
kill. Stalin also didn't
shoot anyone personally, he just gave instructions to shoot, but we
call him a murderer.

“What
if such a man comes to confession?”

“All
this conerns the state of the man's soul. Such people haven't
confessed to me, and I have never heard about such cases. Here
appears the question – maybe, even the judges who issue such
sentences, and the executioners don't come to confession? I
even admit that this is so incompatible with Christianity, that
Christians can not tolerate such sentences and
don't work as executioners. However, if they issue such a verdict and
repent, everything will depend on the individual case. Sometimes it
is complicity
in the murder, as the decision to make such a judgment comes
from some higher instance. People don't just come to church to
confess – they don't just come and go... In fact, it is a long
work. If such a man comes to church, noone will reject him. However,
everything will depend on how he feels it. When he repents , it means
that he
feels
that something is not right.“Apart
from the religious ones, what is Your main argument against the death
penalty?”

“In
our country, death sentences are executed very quickly, and there is
low probability that a miscarriage
of justice
can be corrected for such short time. The very fact of the
miscarriage
of justice
is a sufficient reason to refuse from using the death penalty. We
know that there were many miscarriages
of justice,
especially in the cases
of
serial killers. Supporters of the death penalty support
the ideal variant – they know who has killed, that he is guilty and
they known what to do with him. If there was no death penalty, there
would always
be an
opportunity to correct the miscarriage
of justice.

Our
Metropolitan Filaret called for abolition of the death penalty back
in 1996, during the referendum.
And this year he
also
said: "We, Christians can not justify the death penalty, as it
is the sin of murder. The life of every person belongs to God. We
didn't give the life to a man, and we cannot deprive him of life. As
far as our Lord Jesus Christ sacrificed his life on cross for the
life of each of us. The government re-crucifies Christ each time it
punishes its citizens with death."

The
interview was taken by Palina Stsepanenka
especially for the campaign "Human Rights Defenders against the
Death
Penalty
in Belarus"